CHAPTER IIIFOOD FOR CONSIDERATION
Lilian Boyd did not want to cross the line of division that was acutely felt and yet so nicely projected that a faint move on her part would bring about a rebuff. She had the youthful longing for girlish friendships, for little confidences about books they liked, about aims and the future. Some of the pupils were so attractive; and it was because she was the caretaker’s daughter; she saw it when they came in to her mother with any errand, when they passed her in the halls with a supercilious nod.
But then, why need she care? They would go their way presently and she might remain. She knew she had won Mrs. Barrington’s favor. That lady made it a point of her joining the Sunday evening singing and she found that she had a good, flexible voice.
One lovely October afternoon she thought she would walk down to the river whose banks were now a blaze of color. Some one called and she turned. It was Alice Nevins whowassometimes tiresome. The girls were going down in town and one of them had really asked her if she would not like to join them.A gratified light shone in her eyes for a moment. There was something in the other’s face that gave her a quick warning. There was some plot underneath.
“Thank you very much but I cannot go this afternoon. I hope you will all have a nice time.”
Then she went to her room. Her mother was folding up some sewing. “There is so little to do,” and she smiled vaguely.
“Come out and walk with me.”
“No, I don’t feel equal to it, I will put a shawl about me and sit on the porch.”
“Shall I come and read to you?”
“No, dear, it is an effort to listen. I’ll just sit and think.”
“Mother, are you satisfied here?”
“Oh, my child, I could not have dreamed of anything so comfortable, and for your sake—you are happy?” with a touch of wistfulness.
“Oh, it is so delightful, and then to think that I shall fit myself for a nice position presently. Then mother dear we will have a few rooms and a real home again.”
“Oh, you are so good,” in a tremulous tone.
Lilian kissed her. She wondered why her mother’s eyes rested on her at times withthat unfathomable look and the lips would move, then suddenly compress.
So she walked down past the summer house where the Virginia creeper was flaunting long scarlet branches in the wind.
“Oh, Miss Boyd!”
She turned. Alice Nevins ran out. Her face was red and swollen with weeping.
“Oh, what is the matter?”
“Let me come with you? Oh, I’m so homesick, and I just hate some of the girls. They laugh when I blunder. I don’t know things. I just hate school! Papawouldsend me here. Mamma begged to take me abroad. I’m sure I could have learned a great many things. People say travel is an education. I hate to study books. Do you really love it?”
“Yes, very much, and for all it brings to you. Were you never at school before?”
“Only a little. Then I had a governess. You see, I was growing fast and mamma thought I oughtn’t study. She wasn’t very well and papa wanted to take her somewhere in Italy, and he sent me here, and some of the girlsdomake fun of me. Can’t youfeelit when they are laughing at you?”
Lilian flushed. “I try to think of somethingelse. They are not really worth minding.”
“I know I’m not pretty. Oh, I wish I were! And you have such a lovely complexion. How is it made up?”
“Made up? What do you mean?”
“One of the girls said it was, and that sometimes you painted.”
Lilian was angry then.
“My paint and powder are soap and water,” she returned, indignantly. “It is a shame for a young girl to do such things.”
“But youarepretty. Must your mother be the caretaker here? What does she have to do?”
“She looks after the sewing and the mending. Yes, because we are poor, we both have to earn our living. Some day I mean to teach and take care of her.”
“Where is your father?”
“Oh, he died when I was a baby.”
“Well—I’m awful sorry. Do you like that Phillipa Rosewald?”
“I don’t know much about her.”
“She makes fun of so many things, and she tells you words that sound wrong when you pronounce them. I said something yesterday and the girls giggled and Miss Davis thoughtI did it purposely and I was marked down.”
“It was a very mean thing,” Lilian’s cheek glowed with indignation.
“Then Miss Rosewald tells such funny stories. Four or five of the girls just hang together and they think they are everything. But I guess father is as rich as any of their fathers. Only I wish I was real handsome.”
“Oh, my dear, I would think of my studies instead. Now let us talk them over. What is it that bothers you most?”
“Oh, everything.”
“But youmuststudy. Now, won’t you try this evening. I’ll help you all I can.”
“Oh, I wish I was with mamma. I shall just tell her that I hate school. What’s the use of so much education anyhow? Girls get married.”
Lilian felt that Mrs. Nevins was a very poor mother not to have taught her daughter a little common sense. Then she asked how old Alice was.
“I was fifteen last May.”
“And I will be sixteen in June. I wasn’t quite fourteen when I was promoted to the High School, where I spent two years.”
“Oh, but I’m not going to teach or anything. Mamma said she would be sure tosend for me next vacation, but that is almost nine dreary months away,” with a profound sigh.
“And you ought to learn a good deal in that time, so that you will not be classed with the ignorant and conceited girls who think their money will cover everything. There are so many young people going abroad nowadays, college girls who have all the nice points of travel by heart?”
“Oh, dear, I just can’t study!” desperately.
“Oh, try. Now this evening I will help you. You see,” smiling, “very little knowledge comes natural. It is true some acquire easier than others, but it is the continued effort after all.”
“Oh, dear, I wish you had been my sister. Papa is always bemoaning that there are not more of us, but mamma says if there were I would have to go without many things. I’ve some lovely jewelry but papa would put it in the safe deposit, and he went and bought this cheap little watch for school. My nice one cost one hundred dollars. It’s a real beauty, and mamma has lots of diamonds. I have two, they were birthday rings. Don’t they have parties here when you dress up? I brought my pretty white silk, and I have apink one with lots of lace, and my fur coat will be sent to me, it is being altered a little. It’s real seal, and mother has such a lovely Russian sable. Oh, I do like pretty clothes, but Mrs. Barrington made out a list that seemed very plain for a high-up finishing school—don’t you think so?”
“I have not seen it. Most girls come to study and fit themselves for the station they are to occupy. Unless you are going in society I think there is little need of very fine clothes. Now let us talk a little about your studies. Miss Davis feels quite concerned about you.”
Miss Nevins pouted a little. Lilian felt her nice walk was spoiled so she turned her attention to the ignorant girl who “just hated study.” What a foolish mother she must have, while it seemed that her father was far more sensible.
Mrs. Barrington stood on the porch as they returned. She detained Lilian with a wave of the hand. When Miss Nevins was out of hearing she said in an approving tone—
“I am glad to see you take an interest in that poor child. Miss Davis thinks her lamentably ignorant. I am really sorry I accepted her, but her father wrote such urgent, sensible letters.Her mother must be a very foolish body and the girl is extremely backward. It is asking a good deal of you to take a little pains with her, but I see that you have an attractive way with you. You will make an excellent teacher, and I hope to keep you a long while.”
“Oh, thank you, I will try to do my best,” Lilian returned, delighted with the praise.
Miss Arran always came in the study room, generally bringing a bit of embroidery for it was not expected that Miss Boyd should attend to the upper division with some girls older than herself. The other class were quite at the lower end of the room, ranged around the table. Miss Boyd seated herself next to Miss Nevins and patiently explained, but it was very hard to keep the girl’s attention to the subject in hand. She thought she had never seen any one so utterly indifferent and with so little ambition. There had been stolid, slow-witted girls among the operatives in Laconia in the grammar school, but they really desired to learn.
Miss Davis paused the next day to say—
“Miss Boyd your good training does begin to take effect. Miss Nevins had such excellent recitations today that I was pleased beyond measure. You are way up in Mrs.Barrington’s good graces, I can tell you.”
Lilian flushed at the commendation.
For the next hour the girls could have a social time in each others’ rooms or the library. There was a crowd of eager talkers with Miss Rosewald.
“Yes,” she was saying. “I ran over the housekeeper just as she was coming out of Rinsey’s. Zay will be here by the 20th, and she’s coming right to school, for the Major and Mrs. Crawford are going to the Mediterranean. The German doctors and the baths did wonders for her and she can walk without crutches. A friend is to take them on his yacht and they’ll be home at Christmas, and there will be Vincent’s graduation. Dear me! I hope I can go up to West Point. They say the balls are splendid. The Crawford house is to be all done over, and no doubt there will be a big housewarming there.”
“Oh, it will be just delightful to have Zay back again. I suppose that’s the reason Miss White was put in with Buttons and that room fixed up so nice. Mrs. Barrington has had word, of course. We just need her to round out, I was going to say, the atmosphere. It’s too studious. Those Kirkland girls are going to college, dearly loved cousins, quite sufficientfor themselves, and there’s that granery, yallery, Grosvenor Gallery, one who writes poetry and is too lackadaisical for anything. What we want is a rollicking, fun loving girl to start us.”
“And something’s the matter with you, Phil. Have you been crossed in love?”
Phillipa Rosewald turned scarlet. “No,” she answered, “it’s two of them and I can’t decide. One is rich and homely as a hedge fence and always saysdrawringandreel, but has lots of money and a fair enough family back of him. The other is handsome and oh, my! gay as a lark, but he had about run through with a fortune, and I’m afraid he will flirt now that the restraint of my serious and imposing presence is removed.”
“Serious, that’s good. Why didn’t you say severe?”
Phil’s love affairs were the entertainment of her coterie.
“Oh, girls, did you notice—well, I have a new name for them. ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ How devoted they were this evening!” broke in Louie Howe.
“Oh, you mean that Nevins girl? Butdoyou call Miss Boyd handsome?”
“Well—she has a fine complexion—”
Louie wrinkled up her nose.
—“and lots of beautiful hair, a good figure and regular features. Maybe she lacks a certain style to make her noticeable—or something—”
“Money and position. I don’t just see why a common sort of girl who has to earn her living should be above the average, and that Nevins girl’s father is one of the firm of bankers in New York and London, and she’s horrid!”
“Oh, girls,” exclaimed May Gedney, “they kissed each other last night in the hall, a regular smack; I heard it. Fancy that pimply cheek being pressed against yours! and that lap-over tooth that sticks her lips out, and those pale gray-green eyes. Yes, Miss Boyd does look handsome by contrast.”
There was a great giggle. “We must watch the course of this ardent love. Perhapssheunderstands the worth of contrast.”
They went back to Zay Crawford, who was a general favorite. She and a brother nine years older than herself, a passed midshipman had gone to Germany in the summer, where her mother had been taking treatment. The Major had accompanied her. Miss Crawford had taken over the young people.
It was true, to Lilian’s surprise, that Alice Nevins had clasped both arms around her and kissed her rapturously, exclaiming—“You are so sweet! Oh, I wish mother and father would adopt you! I’d just like to have you for a sister. I’ve never seen a girl before that I wanted.”
Lilian freed herself and went to her room. She was not an effusive girl. At Laconia she had made some friends, but she was too proud to aspire to the higher ranks or accept overtures from them. She feltsorryfor Alice Nevins but there was no real companionship. Yet was there not a duty? She seemed to occupy a peculiar position, and loved to listen to the fascinating bits of talk, places one and another had seen, music, operas, paintings, lectures, a knowledge of real things, not merely those gleamed from books.
Well, she must earn them herself. She used to dream of them at nights when the lights were put out. She was changing curiously, she felt it herself. It was not only in the added self-reliance, the nameless little ways of refinement and grace the intuitive knowledge of what we call good breeding, and the cordial smile of commendation from Mrs. Barrington thrilled every pulse.
Mrs. Boyd was not vulgar but she was undeniably commonplace. High thoughts such as stirred Lilian in verse, never roused her. Yet the girl did feel indignant at times at the manner in which some of the girls addressed her mother when they were uniformly polite to Miss Arran.
She was quite undecided about her duty to Miss Nevins. The kiss had come so suddenly she had no time to evade it but she took good care to do so the next night. Lilian had never been an effusive girl. She had almost broken her mother’s heart in her little more than babyhood, when after a rapturous caress she had half pulled from the enclosing arms and said in a willful fashion—“Don’t kiss me so hard, I don’t liked to be kissed!” And later on when her mother had always called her Lily, she had said emphatically—“Why don’t you call me Lilian! I’m too big a girl to be called by such a baby name as Lily and I don’t like it.”
That began a sort of gulf between them that the mother never had the courage to bridge over. There was a curious dignity about her that even the obtuse Miss Nevins could not surmount.
One day the girl brought her two beautiful orchids.
“You’ve been so good about my lessons that I wanted to do something, and these were”—hesitatingly—
“Handsome and expensive,” in a chilling tone. “They were the finest things the florist had, and mamma always sends me some money in her letters, while papa sends my allowance to Mrs. Barrington. So I feel that is clear gain,” laughing. “Mrs. Barrington is rather strict about allowances, and she’s shut down on so much sweets and hot chocolates. Do you think it hurts one’s complexion?”
“It certainly hurts yours. I would give them up, and so much cake; the regular school living is good enough, and you should take a cold bath in the morning.”
“Ouch! That would be horrid,” and the girl shuddered.
“But you want to be beautiful!”
“Oh, I am afraid that wouldn’t make me beautiful, and when I am quite grown up I shall have lovely clothes, and it doesn’t so much matter when you are rich.”
Lilian glanced at her with a sort of pity that any girl could be so silly, and a sense of disgust, also.
“Miss Nevins, I must say one thing that I want you to observe for the future. You must not make me costly gifts nor any kind of gifts. The help I am giving you Mrs. Barrington wishes me to give to any girl who needs it. It is simply my duty, you see, and Mrs. Barrington repays me.”
Miss Nevins looked as if she could not understand. Then she struck a rather tragic pose.
“Oh, if you would only love me!” she cried, clasping her hands together. “I am so lonely! I miss mamma every hour. Then I think I could learn to like it here, and I’d try to study. I’d give up cream soda and—yes, Iwouldtake the bath, but it must be warm.”
“Oh, you foolish thing!” Lilian laughed in spite of herself. “There, I cannot stay here talking, and you must go to your lessons.”
“No, I’ll get some other girl and go down town. You are cold and cruel.”
She was rather sullen all the evening and failed in some recitations the next day. After that she studied with a better grace.
“Miss Arran,” Lilian said on Sunday morning, “do you think I might take mother to that little Chapel in Chester street. I think she would feel more at home there.”
“Oh, certainly. Mrs. Barrington insists that the girls shall attend at least one service a Sunday. Then there is the Bible Class here, which she makes very interesting. She and many of the girls go to Trinity, but I like the Chapel a good deal myself. It is a Methodist, you know.”
“Yes, mother was used to that service.”
So they went together, though Louie Howe said—“We’ll manage it so Beauty and the Beast will walk together,” but she missed her plan.
It was a very simple and sweet service and the sermon was on hidden sins. Lilian wondered if hers was undue pride, the desire to rise above her station? She glanced at her mother. The tears were coursing silently down her sunken cheeks. Was she missing the love a daughter ought to give? She looked so frail and delicate that the girl’s heart went out to her as it never had before.
In the vestibule stood a sweet faced young woman waiting while an elderly lady was talking to her friend. She came near and held out her hand in a friendly manner.
“You are a stranger here, but we are very glad to welcome you,” she began cordially.
“You are one of the Seminary young ladies, I saw you on the porch one day when I was passing.”
“Yes,” Lilian returned, then added “in a way. And this is my mother, Mrs. Boyd.”
“And I am Miss Trenham. This is my mother.” The two ladies shook hands in an old-fashioned manner.
“Do you go up Elm Place? Then let us walk together. Is this your first year here?”
“Yes,” answered Lilian.
“I hope you liked our clergyman and will come again.”
“I think mother will feel more at home.”
Miss Trenham smiled.
“I come here largely for my mother’s sake. I think the simple service comes nearer the heart of the older people. I like Trinity church, I like the service of the whole year round, and the music is fine. I like coming in the house of God with a reverent hymn. You are one of the newer scholars, are you not?”
“Yes, we came in August. My mother has a position in the household.” She would not sail under false colors. “And I am to study for a teacher.”
“Oh, then we’ll have a mutual bond. I am a teacher in the Franklin School.”
“Oh, I know where that is,” with a smile.
“You like your own school?”
“Oh, it is delightful, and such a beautiful home. Such a lovely town—”
Her face was radiant with pleasure. Then they paused.
“We go on a few blocks further. We live in Gray street. I am very glad to have met you. Shall I see you again next Sunday morning?”
“Oh, yes,” promised Lilian.
Then she took her mother’s arm.
“Did you like it mother dear? I thought the service very simple and sweet.”
“And the lady was so friendly. I told her we were at the Seminary. The daughter teaches school, and she asked me to visit them—to come to tea some day. Do you suppose Mrs. Barrington would object? Would you like to go?” timidly.
“Why it would be very pleasant.”
“Everybody seems so grand, I’m glad not to go to the high-up tables; I’m so afraid of mistakes. You see when people get along inlife it isn’t so easy to take up new ways. But that Mrs. Trenham seemed like some of the Laconia folks.”
“Yes, we will go again next Sunday,” said Lilian. “And to tea the first time we are invited.”
CHAPTER IVTHE GRACE OF ENDEAVOR
The door of Mrs. Boyd’s room stood partly open. Louie Howe gave a light tap and marched in with an air that was rather insolent.
“Oh, Mrs. Boyd, I’ve given my walking dress such an awful tear! Mrs. Barrington said she was quite sure you could mend it. You see I’m going to a sort of musicale in about an hour and I couldn’t take it to the tailors. It’s my best suit, too, and—it must be done very neatly.”
Mrs. Boyd examined it. “Yes, it’s pretty bad, I’ve done worse though, and part of it will be under the plait. Let me see if I have the right color.”
She opened a box of spools and took up several colors to match.
“Oh, yes, here is one,” and she gave a smile of gratification.
Louie dropped into a chair. Was she going to wait? Lilian wondered.
“What a pleasant room this is, Mrs. Boyd! But all the rooms are just cozy and nice. Of course Mrs. Barrington can afford to keep it in a lovely fashion for her prices are high andshe doesn’t care to take any scholars only from the best families. I do wonder how that Nevins girl slipped in? Her father is a first-class banker, I have understood. They have a big house in New York and a summer house at Elberon, and their New York house is rented out for seven thousand dollars; but isn’t she a terror? How do you stand her, Miss Boyd?”
“She has had very little training. Her mother has been ill and seems very indulgent,” answered Lilian quietly. “Yet she may make a very fair scholar.”
“It’s funny to hear her talk. Bragging, we call it. Do you suppose the stories are true?”
“Mrs. Barrington would know,” was the cautious reply.
“Well, I suppose she must be satisfactory or she wouldn’t be here. But there’s common blood back of her somewhere. Money doesn’t give you the prestige of good birth. That always shows—don’t you think so?” with a confident upward glance.
“I have not had experience enough with the world to judge,” answered Lilian. “We lived in a factory town—”
“And in such places there are a good many newly rich, and they think they have it all.”
Mrs. Boyd had been straightening out the rent and basting it on a piece of stiff paper.
“I wonder if you would mind asking Mrs. Dane if there were irons on the range.”
She looked straight at Louie, not at all as if she was asking a favor. Lilian was on her knees straightening and dusting the lower shelf of the book case. She did not even turn her head.
Miss Howe went out with what she thought was a stately step and frowned at the girl on the floor whose business was to wait on her mother. When she was clear out of sight and hearing Lilian sprang up and clasped her arms about her mother.
“Oh, that was just splendid!” she cried, her eyes soft and shining.
“I—I think I meant—either of you!” hesitating.
“It was her business and it won’t hurt her to wait on herself. The girls go down to the kitchen and iron out ribbons and things. I’m not their maid, and she had no business to stand here gossipping about Miss Nevins. I’m sorry for her and I don’t like her, but there are some girls that are real friendly. There are two girls going to college next year. They have money, too, and they think a degree agreat thing, and know of girls who have taught awhile and then taken a year or two and taught again. I was reading such a fine book—this girl and her mother took a cottage and boarded the overflow of girls and had a lovely time, she helping and studying. That’s what we will try to do, and this year you will get real well and strong. Oh, isn’t it nice not to have any care of things and so much comfort?”
The mother bent over her work turning her head aside so that a tear shouldn’t fall on it. Oh, wouldn’t the child be better off without her? She was so courageous, so fertile in expedients. Oh, they could not be all day dreams.
The skirt was beautifully darned and pressed and sent to Miss Howe’s room by the maid. Then a note came to Mrs. Boyd. “Wouldn’t she and Miss Lilian walk home with the Trenhams from church tomorrow morning and dine and meet a delightful young friend who had graduated at a Woman’s College. Lilian might like to hear the experiences.”
“Oh, that will be just royal!” the girl exclaimed. “Mother you must rest this afternoon. If there is any mending let me do it.”
“Nothing is needed. Sometimes I feel as ifI did not really earn my salary, and Mrs. Barrington is so kind.”
“And now I begin to feel quite at home with some of the young ladies. Iamproud of being a good scholar, but I study with all my might and main,” laughing. “And next year I may earn a little money.”
Sunday was bright but rather blowy. The leaves fell and whirled about like flocks of birds and the sky was like a June day. Miss Benson had come to church, a bright rather pretty woman of five or six and twenty. Her voice was attractive. Lilian had come to remark the differences in voices. Some did repel you; many were indecisive.
They walked down to Elm place. This was the old end of the street in a row of small detached houses with gardens running back to the next street and a space of six feet or so between. The Trenham’s was in very nice tidy order, the windows with neat white drapery.
“Our next door neighbors are considered quite a detriment,” explained Edith Trenham. “The woman professes to be a clairvoyant, and there are five children, two very unruly boys. I do hope they will go away in the spring.”
Edith ushered her guests into the prettyparlor where the cheerful fire seemed to radiate pleasure as well as heat. In a small wheeling chair sat the invalid, a pale little girl of fifteen, but who looked years younger. She held out her hand to Lilian.
“Oh, what pleasure it is to see you,” she cried. “Your color is radiant—like a June rose, isn’t it mamma? and such beautiful hair. Edith is always well but she hasn’t much color. Oh, if you could have seen our roses in June! They were bewildering. Don’t you feel that gorgeous things sometimes are? Then the next door boys came over and stole the roses and broke the bushes. I cried nearly all day. It seemed as if I had been pulled to pieces. The mother said she was sorry but that wouldn’t put the roses back.”
“Claire you will find is quite a spoiled child,” Edith said, stooping to kiss her. She was very pale and the dark hair framing in the little face gave her an almost uncanny look.
When they had laid aside their wraps Claire took possession of Lilian again, and wanted to know about the girls in the Seminary.
“Why, Claire, they are most all young ladies,” said Edith.
“Well—are there many pretty ones? andwhat do they do beside study? They would get tired studying all the time.”
Lilian explained that they visited in each others rooms and had calisthenics and danced, and went through some beautiful evolutions with Indian clubs—
“Oh, how funny!” Claire interrupted. “Do they make believe they are Indians?”
“Oh, no,” and Lilian explained. They had a bell double quartette and made lovely music by striking some sweet-toned bells with small wands, and they were allowed to go down town. One evening a week there were dances.
“Oh, do you dance? You look that way?”
Lilian colored. “You see I spend a good deal of my time with my mother. Then I have lessons to learn—”
“And I don’t study, I read delightful books. For you must know I can never get about or do things like other children. I draw and I paint over pictures, and I have an autoharp, and a beautiful big doll that I make believe is alive and we go traveling. Edith reads about journeys.”
Mrs. Trenham had been adding a few last touches to the table which had been mostly prepared in the morning, the real cooking havingbeen done the day before. Claire was lifted out in a cushioned chair and insisted that Lilian should sit next. Miss Benson was on the other side and took a turn with Lilian.
“Yes, she had worked her way through college. She had studied type-writing and done work for the professors and copied essays for the girls and coached backward girls, and trimmed hats, as she had a genius for millinery. Then, in vacation she had been a sort of summer governess when parents wanted to take journeys. It had all been very interesting, too, but it had taken longer, and now she was studying medicine in New York and teaching some hours a day.”
“I like to teach but I don’t believe I want to be a doctor, I think I should like to go to college.”
“It is a fine discipline and broadens out one’s mind. It makes excellent teachers, as well, and you do have many happy times. Think of a settlement of hundreds of girls!”
“Mrs. Barrington will only have twenty boarders and there are about twenty day scholars.”
“Not a very large family to be sure, butenough to give you some variety. You look as if you might be a good student.”
Lilian colored.
Mrs. Trenham was entertaining the mother.
She had been a widow twelve years, but was left with a small competency. Claire had been thrown out of a carriage by a runaway horse when she was barely five and very seriously injured so that for two years she was entirely helpless and now held her life on a very frail tenure, but she was a happy child and they made her life as entertaining as possible.
“You are blest in your daughter,” said Mrs. Trenham. “She is so bright and eager and vigorous, and has so much character. Well, I have Edith who has always been a great comfort, and I suppose one gets used to a burden when it is a pleasant one. Claire is very loving and we try to keep all sad things from her.”
Lilian thought it a delightful afternoon. These were the kind of people you could get close to. She saw that her mother was enjoying it as well. Wasn’t it rather monotonous for her at Mrs. Barrington’s? At Laconia there had been neighbors dropping in, some who had known her early life and sympathized with her misfortunes, and here, noone. She was glad to have been taken in this kindly family.
“Oh, won’t you come often?” pleaded Claire. “I like you so much, and if you could come some Saturday mamma and Edith might go out together. An old lady does come in when they go to church, but she isn’t any real company. She hasn’t any ideas. Don’t you think old people get sort of stupid?” Lilian laughed.
Miss Benson expressed a good deal of pleasure at meeting such an ambitious girl and hoped to keep in touch with her for sometime; she might be able to counsel her or perhaps direct her on her way.
“It has been just delightful,” she said when they reached their own rooms.
She did not go in to sing but read to her mother. Yes, she would try in the future to share more of her life with the colorless one. She had resolved to make the great sacrifice when she found she could not go on with school, and lo, this had been the outcome. They were delightfully sheltered, there were no hardships, only pin pricks and she would be silly to mind those. There was a sudden commotion through the place on Monday morning.Such glad bursts of welcome, such joyous laughter and absolute peans of delight.
For Zaidee Crawford had come. She, Lilian, was not in it and she wondered if at any time or in any place there would be such unalloyed gladness at her coming.
A girl of fifteen, bewilderingly pretty in the changes that passed over her mobile face. A complexion that was pink and pearl, golden hair that was a mass of waves and shining rings that seemed to ray off sunshine with every movement of the head that had a bird-like poise; a low broad Clytie brow and eyes that were the loveliest violet color, sometimes blue, sometimes the tenderest, most appealing gray. Her smile was captivating, disarming. It played about her lips that shut with dimples in the corners, it quivered in her eyes and made the whole face radiant.
Why Zaidee Crawford wasn’t spoiled by the indulgence and adulation was quite a mystery. She had been longed for before her birth—one brother was seven the other nine years older. Major Crawford thought the tie between father and daughter was one of the choicest of heaven’s blessings. He was proud of his sons whose straightforward, honorable careers in the lines they had chosen,to his great satisfaction, gave him profound happiness. Connected with Zaidee’s birth had been the great sorrow of their lives that had cost Mrs. Crawford years of excruciating suffering and at first it seemed hopeless invalidism. In one of the Indian skirmishes the Major had been severely wounded in the leg that had left it lame and rather stiff. He resigned from the army to devote himself to his wife and the old residence that had been in his family for generations. And at this period a relative died and left him a large fortune. Beyond improving his estate and having the best medical attendance for his wife there was no real change in their living. They were both too sensible not to know how easily boys might be led astray by unwise indulgence in money. They were both high minded with a fine sense of right and justice. Both had gone down the dark valley and looked death in the face and thereafter walked humbly before God.
Zaidee Crawford had been a day scholar except at intervals when her mother had been taken away for medical treatment. Oddly enough, Mrs. Crawford as a girl, had been educated by Mrs. Barrington, then a young and childless widow, with an ardent desire for someuseful aim in life, and they had remained the warmest of friends. Mrs. Barrington’s comfort and faith had cheered many an hour of despondency.
But the Major had once said—“Margaret, while you can endure the suffering, always think that I would much rather have you as you are than to have lost you in that terrible time, and God has spared us our two fine sons and our sweet daughter.”
Yes, there was much joy still left to life.
Zay went to her classes as a visitor this morning. There were many smiles of welcome. After all, she had not fallen so far behind, but her brother had been coaching her. There were four new scholars in the Latin class. The Kirklands, Louie Howe, who had been promoted, and a Miss Boyd, who roused a peculiar interest; but then her rendering in the translation was exceedingly fine.
“Who is that tall girl with the bronzy gold hair? And isn’t she a fine reader?” exclaimed Zaidee.
They were in a little group of old friends. Louie Howe laughed. Phillipa made a funny face.
“Well?” and flushing a little she glanced up, inquiringly.
“The caretaker’s daughter. We are democratic this year,” announced May Gedney.
“The caretaker—”
“A Mrs. Boyd, a pale little nonentity, but she darns in the most elegant fashion you ever saw. She had to bring her daughter you see, and the daughter is to be a teacher—is a sort of charity scholar, looks after the laggards in the evening, but she keeps her place pretty well. Of course she lives over on that side,” nodding her head.
“See here,” began Phillipa, “that girl has puzzled me with an elusive resemblance to somebody, Zay, it really is you. Her hair and eyes are darker, she’s larger every way, she is not such a peerless maid—”
“I shouldn’t feel complimented by that! Oh the idea! A girl from—well somewhere from the wild and woolly west—”
Much as Phillipa Rosewald loved her friends and she confessed to adoring Zaidee, she never stopped at a little fling.
“The compliment, of course, is to Miss Boyd. She has a temper of her own, you can catch a flash of it in her eyes, and I dare say her iron rule is what makes her mother so meek. She pets up that Nevins girl who is a—well theyare called Beauty and the Beast. How she managed to slip in here puzzles me.”
“That girl is my horrid familiar, mybete noire. She has the room next to mine and you ought to see it. Miss Davis marked her down for untidyness, and Mrs. Barrington put her on a diet, her complexion was so horrid, but she manages to get a lot of sweets and chocolates. And the way she dresses! A modiste in New York sends her clothes and told her the color of one’s frocks must match the hair or the eyes, and no one could match those gray blue green eyes, so it has to be the hair.”
“I wouldn’t want that dull brown hair. I don’t suppose she ever brushes it. At home the maid looked after her. The mother is traveling for her health, and they are very rich.”
“Oh, is she making a confidante of you, too?” laughed May Gedney. “I thought it rather funny at first, I didn’t believe half she said, but her father is quite an important man in banking circles it seems, and there are diamonds galore, but he wouldn’t let her wear only that diamond birthday ring at school. She was wildly in love with Miss Boyd but the girl was too hard hearted toreturn it. She is a regular icicle and stony hearted and all that! Yes, her heart is irretrievably gone about the girl. They did have a kissing match one night but they don’t do it any more in public! I don’t know what they do in private, but the Boyd shut down on gifts which almost broke her heart, and she had spent two dollars for two orchids.”
“That certainly speaks well for Miss Boyd,” Zay exclaimed.
May flushed. Latelyshehad been the recipient of some gifts.
“Of course she is here to train the younger minds in the paths of knowledge while her mother mends their clothes.”
“Well, is that to be despised?” asked Zay with spirit.
“Why, no, but of course you don’t associate with your dressmaker’s daughter, nor the store clerks though they are nice enough for the places they have to fill in life. If it wasn’t for the mother she might pass muster, and you know this is the most select of schools. That is one reason mother sent me here there was no chance of making undesirable acquaintances. For one thing, the terms are too high,” and Louie Howe bridled.
“Is this Miss Nevins at the highwater mark?” and there was a touch of sarcasm in Zay’s tone.
“Oh let’s quit the higher criticism,” said another. “I want to hear Zay talk, and you’ve been to Berlin and that picturesque Dresden. Did you see the shepherdesses with their crooks, and Corydon making love to them, and Holland—that funny place of canals and windmills and stumpy dutchmen.”
“And, oh, did you see the Kaiser?”
Zay laughed. “Yes, mounted on a fine horse, and the Empress and her pretty daughter in a state carriage. And Willard went to some sort of review with the Ambassador and was presented to the Kaiser who asked him about Annapolis, and some of the training. He thought the great Emperor very affable. Father has been at a few of the functions and seen the royal ladies in their state dresses. Then, there are some splendid professors and scientists—”
“But you didn’t go to Paris?”
“No. Father and Willard spent ten days there while Aunt Kate and I staid with mother. Then she could cross the room without a cane, even. Now she can walk some distance.Oh, girls, its splendid not to have her go on crutches! And she thinks in two years or so we may go to Paris for quite a stay. You know real young girls don’t understand fine pictures and all that! Willard begins his three-years cruise early in January, and in the summer Vincent will graduate and perhaps be sent off somewhere. The doctors wanted her to spend the whole winter about the Mediterranean, but she thought it would be so lovely to have our Christmas together.”
“Oh, Zaidee Crawford, you’re a girl to be envied! None but the rich, etc.,” with sundry upturnings of the chin.
“Well, I hope I’ll be able to go abroad on a wedding tour. Otherwise I won’t have him!” announced Phillipa with great solemnity at which they all laughed.
“Young ladies do you know it is time to go out for exercise,” said Miss Arran.
“Oh, let us go over to Crawford House,” cried Zay. “Why, you will hardly know it. The two parlors are to be thrown into one—a regular drawing room, and I’m to have the prettiest study off of my bedroom. I have to decide what color I shall have them done in.”
“We’ll all help you.”
“I just can’t have blue and I like it so, but it is the one idea of blondes, therefore I avoid it.”
“It seems Miss Boyd’s favorite color,” said Louie. “And she’s not so very blondy, either.”